No positive tests from Tour de France

Chris Froome claimed victory in what seems to have a 100% clean Tour De France

Chris Froome's success at this year's Tour de France has officially been given the green light by drug testers.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) confirmed today that no rider in this year's race tested positive for a banned substance after the complete analysis of 622 samples.

"The 2013 Tour de France had no positive anti-doping test results, it was announced today at a media open day in Aigle, Switzerland, by the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) director Francesca Rossi," a UCI statement read.

"The CADF took 622 blood and urine samples during the 100th edition of the Tour (versus a total of 566 samples in 2012).

"Working closely with the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), the CADF took 202 pre-competition samples and a further 419 samples during the race.

"Reinforcing the strategy of targeted testing, 198 of the samples taken during the race were for the purposes of the biological passport (versus 149 samples in 2012)."

Team Sky's Froome endured constant questioning about doping during his Tour triumph last month.

The 28-year-old repeatedly denied any claims of wrongdoing and said earlier this week that convicted drug cheats should be given lifetime bans.

A total of 443 blood samples and 179 urine samples were taken in this year's Le Tour testing program, which was jointly run by the UCI and the AFLD.

The program included 113 urine samples tested for EPO and 15 for steroids.

In the blood analysis, 22 samples were tested for EPO-like substances, 18 for human growth hormone and two for transfusions.

Dr Rossi thanked both the AFLD and the CADF for their co-operation in ensuring the widespread target-testing and revealed samples would be retained for use when higher-technology testing is available.

"This target-testing strategy has been hugely facilitated by the excellent on-site co-operation between CADF and AFLD during the race," said Dr Rossi.

"The samples were analysed by the WADA-accredited laboratories of Chatenay-Malabry (France), Lausanne (Switzerland) and Cologne (Germany).

"The UCI and AFLD have also agreed to keep the samples taken for possible retrospective testing in the future."